Heir to the Shadows

Page 59

 

  "I didn't know he was in the Twisted Kingdom until—" Saetan clamped his teeth to hold the words back.

  "Until Lucivar came to Kaeleer," Jaenelle finished for him. She waved a hand dismissively before he could speak. "Lucivar was in the salt mines of Pruul. I know there was nothing he could do. But you. "

  Saetan spaced out the words. "Getting you back was the

  first requirement. I gave my strength to that task. Daemon would have understood that, would have demanded it. "

  "I came back two years ago, and there's nothing draining your strength now. " Pain and betrayal filled her eyes. "But you didn't even try to reach him, did you?"

  "Yes, I tried!damn you, Itried!" He sagged against the desk. "Stop acting like a petty little bitch. He may be your friend, but he's also myson. Do you really think I wouldn't try to help him?" The bitter failure filled him again. "I was so close, witch-child. So close. But he was just out of reach. And he didn't trust me. If he would have tried a little, I would have had him. I could have shown him the way out of the Twisted Kingdom. But he didn't trust me. "

  The silence stretched.

  "I'm going to get him back," Jaenelle said quietly.

  Saetan straightened up. "You can't go back to Terreille. "

  "Don't tell me what I can or can't do," Jaenelle snarled.

  "Listen to me, Jaenelle," he said urgently. "You can't go back to Terreille. As soon as she realized you were there, Dorothea would do everything she could to contain you or destroy you. And you're still not of age. Your Chaillot relatives could try to regain custody. "

  "I'll take that chance. I'm not leaving him to suffer. " She turned to leave the room.

  Saetan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Since I'm his father, I can reach him without needing physical contact. "

  "But he doesn't trust you. "

  "I can help you, Jaenelle. "

  She turned back to look at him, and he saw a stranger.

  "I don't want your help, High Lord," she said quietly.

  Then she walked away from him, and he knew she was doing a great deal more than simply walking out of a room.

  Everything has a price.

  Lucivar found her in the gardens a couple of hours later" sitting on a stone bench with her hands pressed between her knees hard enough to bruise. Straddling the bench, he

  sat as close as he could without touching her. "Cat?" he said softly, afraid that even sound would shatter her. "Talk to me. Please. "

  "I_" She shuddered.

  "You remember. "

  "I remember. " She let out a laugh full of knife-sharp edges. "I remember all of it. Marjane, Dannie, Rose. Briarwood. Greer. All of it. " She glanced at him. "You've known about Briarwood. And Greer. "

  Lucivar brushed a lock of hair away from his face. Maybe he should get it cut short, the way Eyrien warriors usually wore it. "Sometimes when you have bad dreams you talk in your sleep. "

  "So you've both known. And said nothing. "

  "What could we have said, Cat?" Lucivar asked slowly. "If we had forced someone else to remember something that emotionally scarring, you would have thrown a fit—as well as a few pieces of furniture. "

  Jaenelle's lips curved in a ghost of a smile. "True. " Her smile faded. "Do you know the worst thing about it? I forgot him. Daemon was a friend, and I forgot him. That Winsol, before I was . . . he gave me a silver bracelet. I don't know what happened to it. I had a picture of him. I don't know what happened to that either. And then he gave everything he had to help me, and when it was done, everyone walked away from him as if he didn't matter. "

  "If you had remembered the rape when you first came back, would you have stayed? Or would you have fled from your body again?"

  "I don't know. "

  "Then if forgetting Daemon was the price that had to be paid in order to keep those memories at bay until you were strong enough to face them. . . . He would say it was a fair price. "

  "It's very easy to make statements about what Daemon would say since he's not here to deny them, isn't it?" Tears filled her eyes.

  "You're forgetting something, little witch," Lucivar said sharply. "He's my brother, and he's a Warlord Prince. I've known him longer and far better than you. "

  Jaenelle shifted on the bench. "I don't blame you for what happened to him. The High Lord—"

  "If you're going to demand that the High Lord shoulder the blame for Daemon being in the Twisted Kingdom, then you're going to have to shovel some of that blame onto me as well. "

  She twisted around to face him, her eyes chilly.

  Lucivar took a deep breath. "He came to get me out of Pruul. He wanted me to go with him. And I refused to go because I thought he had killed you, that he was the one who had raped you. "

  "Daemon?"

  Lucivar swore viciously. "Sometimes you can be incredibly naive. You have no idea what Daemon is capable of doing when he goes cold. "

  "You really believed that?"

  He braced bis head in his hands. "There was so much blood, so much pain. I couldn't get past the grief to think clearly enough to doubt what I'd been told. And when I accused him, he didn't deny it. "

  Jaenelle looked thoughtful. "He seduced me. Well, seduced Witch. When we were in the abyss. "

  "He what?" Lucivar asked with deadly calm.

  "Don't get snarly," Jaenelle snapped. "It was a trick to make me heal the body. He didn't really want me. Her. He didn't . . . " Her voice trailed away. She waited a minute before continuing. "He said he'd been waiting for Witch all his life. That he'd been born to be her lover. But then he didn't want to be her lover. "

  "Hell's fire, Cat," Lucivar exploded. "You were a twelve-year-old who had recently been raped. What did you expect him to do?"

  "I wasn't twelve in the abyss. "

  Lucivar narrowed his eyes, wondering what she meant by that.

  "He lied to me," she said in a small voice.

  "No, he didn't. He meant exactly what he said. If you had been eighteen and had offered him the Consort's ring,

  you would have found that out quick enough. " Lucivar stared at the blurry garden. He cleared his throat. "Saetan loves you, Cat. And you love him. He did what he had to do to save his Queen. He did what any Warlord Prince would do. If you can't forgive him, how will you ever be able to forgive me?"

  "Oh, Lucivar. " Sobbing, Jaenelle threw her arms around him.

  Lucivar held her, petted her, took aching comfort from the way she held him tight. His silent tears wet her hair. His tears were for her, whose soul wounds had been reopened; for himself, because he may have lost something precious so soon after it was found; for Saetan, who may have lost even more; and for Daemon. Most of all, for Daemon.

  It was almost twilight when Jaenelle gently pulled away from him. "There's someone I need to talk to. I'll be back later. "

  Worried, Lucivar studied her slumped shoulders and pale face. "Where—" Caution warred with instinct. He floundered.

  Jaenelle's lips held a shadow of an understanding smile. "I'm not going anywhere dangerous. I'll still be in Kaeleer. And no, Prince Yaslana, this isn't risky. I'm just going to see a friend. "

  He let her go, unable to do anything else.

  Saetan stared at nothing, holding the pain at bay, holding the memories at bay. If he released his hold and they flooded in . . . he wasn't sure he would survive them, wasn't sure he would even try.

  "Saetan?" Jaenelle hovered near the open study doorway.

  "Lady. " Protocol. The courtesies given and granted when a Warlord Prince addressed a Queen of equal or darker rank. He'd lost the privilege of addressing her any other way, of being anything more.

  When she entered the room, he walked around the desk. He couldn't sit while she was standing, and he couldn't offer her a seat since the rest of the furniture in his study had been destroyed and he hadn't allowed Beale to clear up the mess.

&nb
sp; Jaenelle approached hesitantly, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her hands twining restlessly. She didn't look at him.

  "I talked to Lorn. " Her voice quivered. She blinked rapidly. "He agreed with you that I shouldn't go to Terreille—except the Keep. We decided that I would create a shadow of myself that can interact with people so that I can search for Daemon while my body remains safe at the Keep. I'll only be able to search three days out of every month because of the physical drain the shadow will place on me, but I know someone I think will help me look for him. "

  "You must do what you think best," he said carefully.

  She looked at him, her beautiful, ancient, haunted eyes full of tears. "S-Saetan?"

  Still so young for all her strength and wisdom.

  He opened his arms, opened his heart.

  She clung to him, trembling violently.

  She was the most painful, most glorious dance of his life.

  "Saetan, I—"

  He pressed a finger against her lips. "No, witch-child," he said with gentle regret. "Forgiveness doesn't work that way. You may want to forgive me, but you can't do it yet. Forgiving someone can take weeks, months, years. Sometimes it takes a lifetime. Until Daemon is whole again, all we can do is try to be kind to one another, and understanding, and take each day as it comes. " He held her close, savoring the feeling, not knowing when, or if, he'd ever hold her like this again. "Come along, witch-child. It's almost dawn. You need to rest now. "

  He led her to her bedroom but didn't enter. Safe in his own room, he felt the loneliness already pressing down on him.

  He curled up on his bed, unable to stop the tears he'd held back throughout the long, terrible night. It would take time. Weeks, months, maybe years. He knew it would take time.